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Re-evaluating Modernisation and Dependency in Lesotho

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

The Kingdom of Lesotho is a small country, an enclave of South Africa, occupying 30,350 square kilometres of highland, ranging from 1,500 metres above sea-level at its lowest point to 3,300 metres at its highest. Although only about 13 per cent of the total area is arable, the majority of the de jure population of 1·5 million are predominantly rural.1 While the climatic conditions of this elevation are not alwaysfavourable to agricultural production, there are some fertile pastures in which sheep and mohair-producing goats graze contentedly.2 But the sanctity exuded by quiet mountain vistas is tempered by the stark hardships which accost many Basotho in their daily lives. The country is said to be ‘poor’ in that it cannot adequately provide for much of its population. Therefore many migrate to work in South African mines rather than trying to eke out an existence from the land or seeking limited employment in the cities.3 There are also others whose daily life revolves around desperately securing, by any means available, food for themselves and their families.

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

Page 591 note 1 It is necessary to separate the de jure from the de facto population because, as stated in the Second Five Year Development Plan, 1975/76–1979/80 (Maseru, 1975), Vol. 1, p. 6, ‘some 50% of the male labour force (140,000 to 175,000 men) plus some 10% of the female labour force (about 25,000 women)’ are employed in South Africa.Google Scholar

Page 591 note 2 Some of the references below provide in-depth accounts of the geographical features of Lesotho, but for a general overview, see Bardill, John and Cobbe, James, Lesotho: dilemmas of dependence in Southern Africa (Boulder, Colorado, 1985).Google Scholar

Page 591 note 3 Cf. Leys, Roger, ‘Lesotho: non-development or underdevelopment. Towards an Analysis of the Political Economy of the Labour Reserve’, in Shaw, Timothy M. and Heard, Kenneth A. (eds.), The Politics of Africa: dependence and development (London, 1979), pp. 95129.Google Scholar

Page 591 note 4 See Kuhn, T. S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1970).Google Scholar According to Masterman, Margaret, ‘The Nature of a Paradigm’, in Lakatos, Imre and Musgrave, Alan (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge, 1979), Kuhn uses the term in at least 21 different ways.Google Scholar

Page 592 note 1 Indeed, it would seem that Paul Feyerabend's theoretical anarchism in a prolific paradigmatic world is more appropriate to the case of sociology; Against Method (London, 1975), pp. 1754.Google Scholar

Page 592 note 2 Although the ‘relative deprivation concept’ advanced by Townsend, Peter, Poverty in the United Kingdom (Harmondsworth, 1979), has been strongly contested, the Physical Quality of Life Index (P.Q.L.I.) is an attempt to provide a means of evaluating deprivation;Google Scholar see Morris, M. D., Measuring the Conditions of the World's Poor: the Physical Quality of Life Index (New York, 1979).Google Scholar

Page 592 note 3 Indeed, the report of the I.L.O. Jobs and Skills Programme for Africa, Options for a Dependent Economy: development, employment and equity problems in Lesotho (Addis Ababa, 1979), argues that substantial inequalities of earnings do exist, and that average G.N.P. earnings per capita are distortions, even if weighted to account for inflation.Google Scholar

Page 593 note 1 The statistics in this article, unless otherwise indicated, are derived from the World Bank, World Development Report, 1987 (Washington, D.C., 1987), and pertain to 1985.Google Scholar

Page 593 note 2 Options for a Dependent Economy, p. 259.

Page 593 note 3 Cf. Parsons, Talcott, The Social System (London, 1966)Google Scholar and Eisenstadt, S. N., Tradition, Change, and Modernity (New York, 1973). The latter's concept of modernity (p. 23) is implied in his depiction of the following as the major characteristics of modernisation: a high degree of differentiation in the structures of the society; ‘free’ resources that are not committed to fixed kinships; and the existence of specialised and complex social organisations, group identifications that are ‘non-traditional’ (e.g. national or international), and institutions such as political parties and bureaucracies.Google Scholar

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Page 594 note 1 Wallman, Sandra, ‘A Different Progress: the modernisation of dependence in Lesotho’, in Wallman, (ed.), Perceptions of Development (Cambridge, 1977), p. 116.Google Scholar

Page 594 note 2 This is depicted by Eisenstadt, S. N., Modernization: protest and change (Englewood-Cliffs, N.J., 1966), p. 1, as ‘the process of change towards those types of social, economic, and political systems that have developed in western Europe and North America from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth’, and that have thereafter spread to other continents.Google Scholar

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Page 594 note 4 Eisenstadt, S. N., ‘Some Reflections on the Significance of Max Weber's Sociology of Religions for the Analysis of Non-European Modernity’, in Archives de sociologie des religions (Paris), 32, 1971, pp. 2952,Google Scholar provides an example of this, and his elaboration of Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London, 1930), further refines this position.Google Scholar

Page 594 note 5 Perry, J. W. B., ‘Lesotho’, in Harm, de Blij and Martin, Esmond (eds.), African Perspectives: an exchange of essays on the economic geography of nine African states (New York and London, 1981), p. 256.Google Scholar

Page 594 note 6 The ‘need for achievement’ index in McClelland, David, The Achieving Society (New York, 1961),CrossRefGoogle Scholar or the call for entrepreneurial activity in Hagen, E. E., On the Theory of Social Change (Homewood, Ill., 1962), are examples of this approach.Google Scholar Furthermore, Bauer, P. T. clearly has something of this order in mind when he asserts in Dissent on Development (London, 1976), p. 41, that economic achievement depends on modern ‘human aptitudes and attitudes, on social and political institutions which derive from these’.Google Scholar

Page 595 note 1 Rostow, W. W., The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge, 1960).Google Scholar

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Page 595 note 3 However, the usefulness of aid has long been questioned. For example, according to Bauer, P. T., Equality, the Third World and Economic Delusion (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), p. 102, it is better to focus on internal development than on official aid, which ‘is more likely to retard development than to promote it’.Google Scholar On the other hand, Jones, David in Aid and Development in Southern Africa (London, 1977) was less opposed to aid in the specific case of Lesotho, but did recommend that caution be taken in its administration.Google Scholar

Page 595 note 4 There is no doubt that water is one of Lesotho's best resources. For more details about the Highlands project, see Africa Research Bulletin: economic series (Exeter), 24, 3, 30 04 1987, p. 8614.Google Scholar

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Page 597 note 2 According to Forster-Carter, Aidan, ‘Neo-Marxist Approaches to Development and Underdevelopment’, in Emanuel, de Kadt and Williams, Gavin (eds.), Sociology and Development (London, 1974), pp. 67105,Google Scholar dependency theory is neo-Marxist in orientation, a view opposed, for different reasons, by Bernstein, Henry, ‘Sociology of Underdevelopment versus Sociology of Development’, in Lehmann, David (ed.), Development Theory: four critical studies (London, 1979),Google ScholarGoodman, David and Redclift, Michael, From Peasant to Proletarian (Oxford, 1983),Google ScholarJohnson, Carlos, ‘Ideologies in Theories of Imperialism and Dependency’, in Chilcote, Ronald H. and Johnson, Dale L. (eds.), Theories of Development: mode of production or dependency (Beverly Hills, 1983),Google Scholar and Smith, T., ‘The Underdevelopment of Development Literature: the case of dependency theory’, in Kohli, A. B. (ed.), The State and Development in the Third World (Princeton, 1986).Google Scholar

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Page 598 note 3 Murray, Colin, Families Divided: the impact of migrant labour in Lesotho (Cambridge, 1981), p. 10.Google Scholar

Page 599 note 1 Ibid. p. 22.

Page 599 note 2 The two countries (along with Swaziland and Botswana) are bound in the South African Customs Union which effectively creates a free-trade zone. By means of agreed mathematical formulae, the B.L.S. governments must prove how much compensation they are annually entitled to from the pool of customs and excise collected by South Africa.

Page 599 note 3 Bardill and Cobbe examine this in more detail, and they also note, op. cit. p. 67, that the attitude of some donor countries is ‘arrogant and condescending’.

Page 599 note 4 Ström, Gabriele Winai, Development and Dependence in Lesotho, the Enclave of South Africa (Uppsala, 1978). One wonders whether the Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme will affect the first of these, and à propos the second, the 1979 I.L.O. report argues, op. cit. p. 291, that ‘the distribution of income in Lesotho is much more uneven than has hitherto been supposed’.Google Scholar

Page 599 note 5 For instance, Santos, T. dos, ‘The Crisis of Development Theory and the Problem of Dependence in Latin America’, in Bernstein, Henry (ed.), Underdevelopment and Development (Harmondsworth, 1978).Google Scholar

Page 599 note 6 Murray, op. cit.

Page 600 note 1 Spiegel, A., ‘Changing Patterns of Migrant Labour and Rural Differentiation in Lesotho’, in Social Dynamics (Rondebosch), 6, 2, 1981, pp. 113,Google Scholar and Murray, Colin, ‘Class, Gender and the Household; the development cycle in Southern Africa’, in Development and Change (London), 18, 1987, pp. 235–49.Google Scholar

Page 600 note 2 The impact of this on the lives of Basotho women is examined by Bardill and Cobbe, op. cit., Murray, op. cit., and Gordon, Elizabeth, ‘An Analysis of the Impact of Labour Migration on the Lives of Women in Lesotho’, in Journal of Development Studies (London), 17, 3, 1981, pp. 5976.Google Scholar

Page 600 note 3 Murray, loc. cit. p. 239.

Page 600 note 4 Bardill and Cobbe, op. cit.

Page 600 note 5 See ‘Lesotho-South Africa: border blockade’, in Africa Research Bulletin: political series (Exeter), 31, 01 1986, p. 8028.Google Scholar

Page 600 note 6 For more details about the involvement of Pretoria, see Ibid. 23, I, 15 February 1986, pp. 7938–42. Chief Leabua Jonathan had been elected Prime Minister after independence in 1966, and the Basutoland National Party continued to stay in power during the next 20 years despite being defeated in the general election of 1970 by Ntsu Mokhenhle's Basutoland Congress Party. The political rifts during this period have been well documented by Weisfelder, Richard, ‘Lesotho’, in Gwendolen, M. Carter and Patrick, O'Meara (eds.), Southern Africa in Perspective (London, 1972), and ‘Lesotho: changing patterns of dependence’, in Carter and O'Meara (eds.), Cobbe, op. cit.;Google Scholar and Winai Ström, op. cit. See also Wellings, Paul, ‘Making a Fast Buck: capital leakage and the public accounts of Lesotho’, in African Affairs (London), 82, 329, 10 1983, pp. 495507. King Moshoeshoe II's executive and legislative powers are subject to the guidance of the Military Council, chaired by Lekhanya.Google Scholar

Page 601 note 1 For more on this, see Amin, Samir, Unequal Development (New York, 1976).Google Scholar

Page 601 note 2 Weisfelder, Richard, ‘Lesotho: changing patterns of development’, in Carter, Gwendolen and Patrick, O'Meara (eds.), Southern Africa: the continuing crisis (Bloomington, 1982), p. 256. Although Lesotho is not one of the six Frontline states – and, indeed was claimed by Jonathan to be ‘behind the lines’ – it is one of the nine members of S.A.D.C.C. which is designed to promote regionallylinked development and to decrease dependence, particularly on South Africa.Google Scholar

Page 601 note 3 Bardill and Cobbe, op. cit. p. 200. Cf. Cobbe, James, ‘Economic Aspects of Lesotho's Relations with South Africa’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 26, 1, 03 1988, pp. 7189.Google Scholar

Page 602 note 1 However, it should be noted that this paradigm still clings to the notions of poverty and development. The ‘another development’ model, for instance, recommends that work be conducted in, and in alliance with, local communities, ‘Geared to the satisfaction of needs beginning with the eradication of poverty’, according to the 1975 Dag Hammarskjöld Report on Development and International Co-operation, published in Development Dialogue (Uppsala), 1/2, 1975, p. 28.Google Scholar

Page 603 note 1 See King Moshoeshoe II, ‘Alternative Strategies for Development – a Clarion Call!’, in Ibid. 1, 1987, pp. 76–87.

Page 603 note 2 Naipaul, Shiva quite appropriately suggests that ‘The Third World is an artificial construction of the West – an ideological empire on which the sun is always setting’; ‘The Illusion of the Third World’, in Harper's (New York), 09 1985, pp. 1518.Google Scholar

Page 604 note 1 Ibid. p. 16.

Page 604 note 2 Esteva, Gastavo, ‘Development: metaphor, myth, threat’, in Development: seeds of change (Rome), 3, 1985, pp. 78–9.Google Scholar

Page 605 note 1 van de Geer, Roeland and Wallis, Malcolm concur with this, though for somewhat different reasons, in their Government and Development in Rural Lesotho (Roma, 1982).Google Scholar

Page 605 note 2 Foucault, Michel, ‘What is Enlightenment?’, in Rabinow, Paul (ed.), The Foucault Reader (New York, 1984), pp. 3250.Google Scholar